USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Weston > Weston, a Puritan town > Part 4
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Conventional he may have been, but Mr. Woodward was beloved by his people, and he was devoted to their care and to his Parish. The following entry from the Church Records shows that his parishioners, through their minister, were generous to those in distress elsewhere: "Boston, April 8, 1760, Rec'd of the Church in
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Weston: A Puritan Town
Weston whereof the Revª Mr. Samuel Woodward is Pastor, the sum of two hundred pounds, one shilling and tenpence, old Tenor, by the hand of Nathel Allen for the sufferers in the late Fire. John Phillips." On October 24, 1768, there was a contribution, "For the sufferers of South Carolina and Georgia."
Mr. Woodward was the patriotic minister of the Parish, during the American Revolution. On the morning of April 19, 1775, the Weston Company of one hundred men and three officers, met at the home of Captain Samuel Lamson; Parson Woodward offered prayers, then shouldered his musket and joined the ranks. The Company set out for Concord, but on the Lancaster Road were met by a man on horseback, who told them to go through the woods to the Lexington Turnpike; there they met the retreating British forces and accompanied them to Charlestown. Mr. Wood- ward gave active service for a day, and then was persuaded to return to his Parish.
With ardent Liberty Men to keep an eye on Tory families, with a Representative in the Provincial Congress, Colonel Bradyll Smith, and with the Beacon on Sanderson's Hill, faithfully kept burning by six men, Jonas Sanderson, Nathaniel Felch, Joel Harrington, Nathaniel Parmenter, Thaddeus Pierce, and Daniel Rand, Weston was loyal to the cause of the Colonists. The Beacon was one in a link of signals between General Washington in Cambridge and General Sullivan in Rhode Island. Although the town records give no account of the military experiences of the Weston men who served in the War for Independence, they do list the names and in some instances the campaigns. When General Washington in the early summer of 1775, occupied Dorchester Heights in the maneuver that forced Lord Howe to evacuate Boston, the Weston Company of the Third Middlesex Regiment was ordered to duty, and forty-five men, with five officers marched to the position.
From this time until the end of the War, Weston more than filled her quota of armed forces. In 1777, over one hundred men of the town were enlisted. They served in the Canadian Campaign, were at Ticonderoga, at Crown Point, and at Saratoga when General Burgoyne surrendered on the seventeenth of October,
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Reverend Samuel Woodward, 1751-1782
1777. This defeat carried the war from the North to the Middle Colonies, but Weston men served in the Continental Army for the duration of hostilities. Weston was also active in providing food dur- ing the siege of Boston. Two bakeries, one on the Post Road, another in the Jericho region, sent oxen loads of oven-baked foods, espe- cially bread, while other provisions were liberally supplied.
When the Declaration of Independence was issued to the country by Congress, on July 4, 1776, the General Court in Boston on July 7, ordered that the Declaration should be printed and a copy sent to the minister of each Parish, "the ministers to be required to read the same on the first Lord's Day after they shall have received it, and that it should then be copied into the town records as a perpetual memorial." On the eighth day of September, 1776, from the high pulpit in the Colonial Church, Rev. Samuel Woodward read the Declaration of Independence.
Someone has said, "The stream that glides unnoticed through the land, carries, nonetheless, a blessing in its course," and Mr. Woodward in his simple and sincere way has left an impression of a faithful and loving Pastor. The ministry for thirty-one years of this serious and devoted man ends on a sad note.
The death of his son, Cyrus, in September, 1782, was heart- breaking, but the sorrowing father preached the funeral sermon in which he tried to find comfort. His closing words were prophetic, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." This was Mr. Woodward's last sermon; in a few days, he was taken with a fever, and died in less than a month. He lies buried in the Farmers' Burying Place in the town that he loved and served so well. The long and affectionate memorial on the tombstone ends: "Pleasant in conversation, agreeable in his behavior and endearing in every revelation, this excellent Christian and Minister died greatly lamented, October 5, 1782, in the 56th year of his age, and the 32nd of his ministry."
Reverend Samuel Kendal, D.D., 1783-1814
Mr. Williams, Mr. Woodward, and his successor, Dr. Samuel Kendal, all preached in the Colonial meetinghouse built in 1722. Dr. Kendal from his youth was resolved to become a minister. Born in Sherborn, Massachusetts, he studied there and was ready to enter Harvard in 1773, but the Revolutionary War broke out, and he gave up his studies to enlist in the Continental Army. When the war was definitely turning in favor of the colonists, he re-entered college and graduated in the class of 1782. He not only worked hard at his studies, but supported himself by teaching, or by serving as a farm laborer, so that it is recorded, "he either earned so much, or lived so frugally, that on the day he left college, he had paid all his debts, and had two hundred dollars left."
He came to the Weston Church in 1783, when he was thirty years old. In 1785, he bought the Benjamin Peirce tavern on the Boston Post Road, at the right where the present Wellesley Street and the By-pass branch off on the left. The following year he married Abigail Woodward, daughter of his predecessor. It was to this house that a man came to be married to his second wife. When Dr. Kendal asked him to stand up, the prospective bride- groom grumbled, "It seems to me this is a new fashion." "New or not," was the reply, "you will be married that way, or not at all," and the man was married, that time, standing.
Here, also, were born two of his children, Sophia and Samuel Woodward; but on a cold snowy night in February, 1791, the house burned to the ground. The story has often been told that as he watched, and knew that even his sermons were going up in flames, he remarked that, "For once, at least, they were able to give light."
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Reverend Samuel Kendal, D.D., 1783-1814
For a few years, Dr. Kendal and his small family lived with his wife's people, in the commodious house built in 1753, by Mr. Woodward, and here in 1793, was born daughter Abigail, who grew up to be a faithful member of her father's church, as well as a popular young lady in Weston society. When Abigail was only a few months old, her mother died; in 1794, Mr. Woodward's younger daughter, Miranda, to the great joy of the Parish, became the wife of the young minister.
In 1795, with the aid of his parishioners, Dr. Kendal built an imposing dwelling on the site of his former home. Besides helping with the erection, his people gave the hand-hewn timber; the clap- boards were sawed at Abraham Bigelow's mill at Stony Brook, and the whole was put together with nails forged by the several black- smiths in town.
With his height of six feet, four inches, and a broad-shouldered, large-limbed frame, Dr. Kendal had a great capacity for hard work. He carried on the farm, prepared young men for college, and tutored those who were "rusticated," for one reason or another, preached two sermons every Sunday, called church and parish meetings, and visited the different homes.
One short November day, the parson was making Parish rounds; he was fairly majestic mounted on a large horse of powerful build. Toward dusk, Mrs. Kendal, at home with the children, heard a sound at the door, and an unpleasant-looking man entered the room, demanding food.
His hunger satisfied, the intruder set off, and Mrs. Kendal watched him out of sight down the Post Road. Not long after, she discovered that her silver spoons were missing. When the parson returned and heard her story, he asked the direction the man had taken, remounted, and rode after him, leaving a sadly worried wife. In an hour or so, when her husband returned and placed the spoons in her hand, Miranda burst into tears, "Oh, Sam! Are you badly hurt?" "Hurt," said the astonished parson, "my dear, I overtook the man, asked him for your spoons, and he gave them to me; we did each other no bodily harm."
Fair-minded and considerate, gracious and pleasant in manner,
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Weston: A Puritan Town
it is said that Dr. Kendal was a man with whom everybody felt it was not prudent to trifle. His church service was simple and dig- nified. According to custom, Dr. Kendal entered the church preceded by the sexton or by one of the deacons, who opened and closed the door of the high pulpit, while the people stood. In an historical address in 1865, by Dr. Sears, is this description: "The pews were filled, both on the floor and in the galleries, and persons still living speak of the stillness that pervaded them under the fervent appeals of the pulpit. Dr. Kendal's style of composition was easy and flowing, his person large and manly, and expressive of the vigor of his mind, and his voice of unusual compass and power, searched every corner of the house and commanded audi- ence." After the service Dr. Kendal came down from the pulpit, joined his wife at a front pew and walked with her down the aisle, followed by the Deacons, the Town Fathers and the rest of the parish, all to mingle in neighborly chat at the front of the church and on the Church Green. Those who came from a distance brought lunch to be eaten between morning and afternoon services; in cold weather, as there was no heat in the church, a room in Smith Tavern, across the way, was used for the "noon-house."
In the records dated March 3rd, 1794: "Voted that the thanks of the Town be returned to the Revª Samuel Kendal, for his Liberality in giving the Town a Plot of ground to erect a school upon." The Kendal farm was on both sides of the Post Road, or the Great Country Road. The Plot of ground is the land on the ledge that rises on the South side of the road opposite the entrance to the present Crescent Street, then the Post Road. Of the six school districts, this was District Number One, or the East Center District, in popular phrasing, the Schoolhouse on the Rock.
The first mention in town records of a School Committee "to provide for Schoolmasters in the District to which they respectively belong," is in 1796, a committee of three for each District. For ten years, until 1806, Dr. Kendal served the East Center District.
One of Dr. Kendal's manuscript sermons was preached on December 29, 1799: "The Sabbath after the news of General Washington's death arrived among us." The text is from II Samuel,
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Reverend Samuel Kendal, D.D., 1783-1814
3-38: "Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel." The sermon begins: "How melancholy, how deeply afflicting to every true American, is the thought that the great, the illustrious Washington is no more. How unwilling we are to realize the sad, the painful truth."
As Dr. Kendal's sermons were of more than usual ability, he was in constant demand for public occasions. Several times he preached the Election Sermon in the State House in Boston; he often served at the ordinations of ministers. His Century Sermon preached in the Colonial church, on January twelfth, 1813, the one-hundredth anniversary of the Town of Weston, a sermon inspired by his love and deep respect for his townspeople, is a complete account of the origin and the growth of the First Parish, and of the Town of Weston. The text is from Psalms 77-5: "I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times."
Dr. Kendal always seemed strong and well, never more so than when he preached this Century Sermon in 1813. As he says of him- self, "the speaker has not been kept from the house of worship but one Sabbath in thirty years." Toward the end are these words: "The time is fast approaching when the lips of the present speaker will be closed. He does not expect to attain to the days of the years of his fathers, to whom long life has been granted."
When Dr. Kendal was called to preach in Boston, he stayed with his daughter, Sophia, who had married Thomas Marshall, a young Boston merchant, nephew of Colonel Thomas Marshall of Revolu- tionary fame. Attending the ordination services of Edward Everett, as minister of the Brattle Street Church, Dr. Kendal contracted typhus fever. He returned to Weston where, although he had always seemed so strong and well, he died after an illness of two weeks, on February 15, 1814. It was only when they heard the tolling of the bell, that his people realized how serious had been his condition.
A Boston paper published this notice: "On the 15th inst. departed this life the Rev. Samuel Kendal, D.D. pastor of the church in Weston, a man highly esteemed in life, and deeply lamented in death. Few characters more deserving of respectful attention have
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Weston: A Puritan Town
been found and exhibited in our country. In 1782, he received the honor of Harvard University, and being settled over the respect- able town of Weston, he became at once the guide and father of his people. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was bestowed upon him by the University of New Haven in 1806."
Miranda Kendal, strengthened by the loyal sympathy of the townspeople, carried on the family life in the home to which she had gone as a bride. Two of the children, Francis and Payson, were still in the District School, but Abigail was nearly twenty years old. Both mother and daughter continued their interest and their helpful work in the Parish, especially with the young people. It was Abigail who, in 1827, opened the first Sunday School in the Parish. In 1834, she married Captain Samuel Hobbs, whose name is found many times in church and town records.
After the death of Miranda in 1832, and that of the youngest son Payson, in the same year, with Sophia in Boston and Francis married and living in Haverhill, the heirs agreed to sell the family estate. In a quaintly worded, "Agreement between S. Hobbs and A. Cutter," dated February 1, 1834, "Samuel Hobbs of Weston in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, and Alpheus Cutter of Watertown, in said County, Clothier, witnesseth, that the said Samuel Hobbs has agreed and does hereby covenant and agree to and with the said Cutter, that he will procure a good and suffi- cient title of the following described farm, situate in Weston and containing ninety acres, be the sum more or less, with the buildings thereon and the appurtenances to the same," then follows a long and detailed list of the boundaries. This broad farm, extending from a little below the west end of the present Crescent Street, along both sides of the Post Road to Willow Lane, now School Street, with a mansion house and other buildings, was sold for three thousand dollars. This must have been a proper sum, since Captain Samuel had the reputation of being fair and just in a deal, although perhaps never over-generous.
In 1857, when he was only sixty-two, Captain Samuel died rather suddenly; Abigail lived to a lovely old age in the house at Hobbs Corner built in 1758, by Isaac Hobbs Sr., Captain Samuel's grandfather.
Reverend Joseph Field, Jr., D.D., 1815-1865
So deeply felt was the sudden loss of Dr. Kendal, that it was not until December 7, 1814, that a legal town meeting of which Isaac Fiske, Esq. was the Moderator: "Voted to give Mr. Joseph Field, Jr., an invitation to settle in the Gospel ministry in the Town of Weston, and to give him as an annual salary the sum of eight hundred dollars during the time that he shall be the minister in Weston; and that the Moderator make known to him the doings of the Town relative to his invitation to settle in the ministry here." The church also met the same day and voted to give Mr. Field a call.
The Moderator sent, in part, the following letter :-
Respected Sir: Weston, Dec. 27, 1814.
In compliance to a vote of the Town as well as to the gratifi- cation of my own wishes, it is my duty to communicate to you the result of the proceedings of the Town and Church of Weston this day. The Church have voted to give you a call,-the Town have concurred in the invitation. More unanimity was scarcely ever shown in the proceeding of any society in relation to the settle- ment of a minister than is witnessed this day. We rejoice and congratulate ourselves. I ardently pray that you will accept our invitation and that your acceptance will be the commencement of a friendship here, to be consummated in immortal felicity.
I am, Sir, with sentiments of respect,
Your friend, Isaac Fiske.
On January 9, 1815, at town meeting assembled, Mr. Field's acceptance was read, and it was therefore voted: "That the Rever- end Joseph Field, Jr., be admitted as a member in full Communion
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Weston: A Puritan Town
with the Church of Christ in Weston." The ordination exercises on February 1, 1815, must have been impressive. "The Reverend Pastors and such delegates as they may see fit to appoint," came from Lincoln, West Cambridge, the Brattle Street Church in Boston; from Barnstable, the College Church in Cambridge, from Bolton, East Sudbury, (Wayland), Medford, Brighton; the First Church in Cambridge, the First Church in Watertown, and the First Church in Waltham. Reverend Dr. Kirkland, President of Harvard College, preached the ordination sermon; the Rev. Dr. Stearns of Lincoln, gave the charge; the Rev. Mr. Samuel Ripley of Waltham expressed the Fellowship of the Churches, Rev. Dr. Holmes of Cambridge made the consecrating prayer, Rev. Mr. Thacher of Boston, the introductory prayer, Rev. Mr. Pratt of Barnstable, the concluding prayer.
The following was also recorded: "The day of Mr. Field's ordination was memorable for its intense cold. Gibbs, President Kirkland's coachman, who drove him up from Cambridge that morning, froze his nose and his ears; and what was worse for all, except possibly for poor Gibbs, at the banquet served in the base- ment hall of the colonial church, the fruit froze on the tables."
In 1815, Mr. Field bought the mansion house on the Boston Post Road, built by Isaac Fiske, Esq., in 1805. The next year, in 1816, Mr. Field was married to Miss Charlotte Maria Leatham of Roxbury, a beautiful young English girl of great talent as well as charm, and the two young people made this handsome house a center of refinement and culture. There were six children, four daughters and two sons, but only a daughter and a son outlived the parents. The son, Charles Leicester Field, was the grandfather; his son, Edward Blake Field was the father of Erlund and Olsen Field, while the great, great grandsons, Joseph, Charles, and Edward, carry on the Field name in Weston records.
In 1817, Mr. Field was commissioned by his Excellency Gov- ernor John Brooks, as Chaplain of the Third Regiment of Infantry of the Massachusetts Militia, of which one Company was the Weston Independent Light Infantry. Mr. Field held this office until 1824, and during his years of service, the Company, when it met for drill at Flagg Tavern, was accustomed to halt its march
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Reverend Joseph Field, Jr., D.D., 1815-1865
along the Post Road back to the Common, to fire a salute in front of Dr. Field's house. The old-fashioned firearms made such a great noise, that the terrified Field children, when they heard the Com- pany approaching, would hide under beds or in closets, until the Peril had saluted and continued their march. On the annual "May Training Day," the salute was, "three rousing volleys of musketry."
A citizen devoted to the interests of the town, Mr. Field made it a rule never to vote in town meeting. He served on the School Board for twenty-seven years, from 1826 until 1853, his duties to be, "examining the instructors, and visiting the schools." As he was respected by the teachers, and as he loved children, his visits were looked forward to with interest and pleasure; he was always en- couraging, and any reproofs were softened with kind words.
As was the custom of the time, Mr. Field made regular exchanges with the neighboring ministers, and was credited, himself, with, "being preferred to all others." As one of his hearers said, "His sermons are not didactic discussions, but devout and religious in style, pleasurable and short, from which we depart rested, not wearied."
Several calls from other parishes came to this excellent minister, one from Boston, but he refused them all in favor of his much loved people here. In only one instance is there record of any feel- ing. On May 8, 1837, came an urgent request to Mr. Field from Waltham. Informed of this, the Weston Parish took immediate action, called a Parish meeting for May fifteenth, voted unan- imously as being desirous that Mr. Field should continue as their Pastor, requested the Parish Clerk, "To communicate to the Reverend Mr. Field the proceedings of this Parish in relation to his letter," and also voted: "That this Parish highly disapprove of the ingenuous attack of the Second Parish in Waltham to induce the Reverend Mr. Field to quit Weston and settle as their Pastor."
In 1840, Harvard conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity :-
Revª Joseph Field, D.D.
Sir,-I have the honor to transmit the accompanying Diploma from the President and Fellows of Harvard University, of the
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Weston: A Puritan Town
Degree of Doctor of Divinity. Permit me to avail myself of the occasion to express the sentiments of great respect with which I am, Your hble svt, Josiah Quincy
It was in Dr. Field's time, in the spring of 1840, that the last town meeting was held in the Colonial meetinghouse built in 1722, in Mr. Williams' pastorate. On April sixth, after great dissension that had lasted over a year, it was voted to take down the grand old landmark, and as no agreement could be reached between Parish and town, the new building was smaller, less imposing, and without a basement story for town gatherings.
As there is no mention in the Church records, during Dr. Field's ministry, of the prosperity and growth of this great nation, nor yet of the Civil War, the part taken by Weston is told in another connection. In 1860, Weston was still agricultural and largely the home of farmers. Even the coming of two railroads, one in 1834, in the south part of the town, the other in the north part in 1844, made very little stir. Great two-and-four-horse wagons of farm produce made their way over the Boston Post Road, and the Great North Road, to the markets near, and in, Boston.
The long and important ministry of Dr. Field, with which the Parish had been blessed for so many years, drew to a peaceful close. His resignation, to take effect on his fiftieth anniversary, February first, 1865, was received "with the deepest emotion," and it was, "Resolved: that though we accept his resignation in part, we humbly trust that he will long be with us and one of us still to aid and council." His anniversary sermon was his last, and he occupied the pulpit only once again, when he welcomed his successor, the Reverend Edmund Hamilton Sears, on Sunday, May twenty- eighth, 1865. As long as his health and his strength allowed, Dr. Field regularly attended Sunday services. Cheerfully and happily he lived in his beloved Parish until November fifth, 1869, and on a lovely Indian Summer day, attended by the devoted people of his Parish, he was carried to his final resting-place, nearly opposite his home.
Reverend Edmund H. Sears, S.T.D., 1866-1876
Four remarkable ministers had served this Parish for one hundred fifty-six years, from 1709 until 1865. In 1866 the unanimous call to Mr. Sears added to the number not only a distinguished scholar and preacher, but an author and poet.
Edmund Hamilton Sears, a descendant of Richard Sears, who landed at Plymouth in 1630, was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, April 6, 1810. In his own pleasing account of his boyhood he writes of a natural shyness of company, which, "confirmed all my habits of study and meditation." As his father had a great fondness for books, and became a proprietor of the town library, the son gained a command of the English language by reading Pope's Iliad, volumes of history and biography, books of travel, and always poetry, epic and lyric. From the local schools his father sent him to Westfield Academy, where he spent nine months; in 1831, he entered the sophomore class at Union College, Schenectady, was graduated, and for a short time studied law. Desiring to prepare himself for the ministry, he studied with the Rev. Addison Brown, of Brattleboro, Vermont, at the same time teaching in the academy there. Graduating from the Harvard Divinity School in 1837, in the summer of that year, Mr. Sears preached one Sunday in Barn- stable. As the guest of Mrs. Ebenezer Bacon who always enter- tained visiting ministers, he met her lovely daughter, Ellen, and was impressed with her beauty of character as was Ellen with his eloquent sermon.
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